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The President announced that the Government is completing work on the relevant draft law. Once the draft law is passed, payments according to position and rank, as well as military pensions, will increase substantially.

Mr Medvedev said that guaranteeing proper social support for military and law enforcement officers and their families, and for retired personnel, is one of the state’s main priorities. This issue is crucial for reforming the armed forces and giving them a new shape, and for reforming the law enforcement system, including Interior Ministry reform and establishing the country’s new police force.

Taking part in the meeting were Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Naryshkin, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov, and Director of the Federal Guard Service Yevgeny Murov.

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Colleagues,

Today we continue on a subject of great importance for our country: the money we pay our servicemen.

This is something the Government has discussed on numerous occasions, given the complexity and the money involved, but we decided back in June last year that the new pay system will come into effect starting in January 2012. The Government is currently completing the work on the relevant draft law. 

Once this law is passed, payments according to position and rank, as well as military pensions, will increase substantially. We must do everything we said repeatedly that we would do, and we must carry out all of the commitments that we made.

Now we should unify the pay system in the federal agencies where military officers work. This will require bringing legislation and ministerial regulations into line with the policies that we approve. There are a number of particular nuances involved in this process, and we will discuss them today.

We must ensure that servicemen, their families, and retired officers enjoy a high level of social support. This is an issue of national importance.

We must ensure that servicemen, their families, and retired officers enjoy a high level of social support. This is an issue of national importance. It is crucial for our success in reforming and giving a new shape to our armed forces, and for law enforcement system reform, including the reforms in the Interior Ministry and establishment of our new police force.

The Defence Ministry, law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, and the Finance Ministry have had time now to harmonise their approaches. Today we will settle the question of how to implement the decisions made. At the same time, we also need to take a number of new circumstances into account, linked to the increase in the number of officers, which the Defence Minister has briefed me on.

The procedures for forming and allocating budget funds are also a very significant matter. All of the federal agencies concerned should have equal possibilities in this respect, but at the same time, a differentiated approach is to some extent inevitable here, and this too is something that we will agree on today. We must act therefore to unify and improve the procedures regarding these budget funds.

Let’s get to work.

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